


hide the demarcations of your soul

by thermodynamicActivity



Series: The Collegestuck 'Verse [46]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, F/F, F/M, Gen, Genderqueer Mituna Captor, Humanstuck, Nonbinary Calliope, Nonbinary Roxy Lalonde, Trans Male Karkat Vantas, Trans Woman John Egbert
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-02
Updated: 2019-09-04
Packaged: 2020-10-09 03:43:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,984
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20484920
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thermodynamicActivity/pseuds/thermodynamicActivity
Summary: The year is 2019, well after the last of you have finished undergrad.It's hard being transgender and in your mid-twenties. It's hard and no one understands. Okay, that last part is bullshit. People understand, and people protect you, and sometimes you protect each other. You - Roxy Lalonde, Karkat Vantas, Calliope Calver, and June Egbert. Oftentimes with your elder trans sibling, Mituna, making an appearance. These are scenes of realizations. Of secrets finally brought to both light and life.You protest injustice, particularly when it is perpetuated by your friends, and you try to help whoever needs it, even as you try to create and reify your identities.





	1. roxy: language we don't recognize as part of our own

**Author's Note:**

> yeah yeah eventually i had to write a collegestuck story dealing with the epilogues and the new headcanons  
this is gonna be a bunch of drabbles with shifting PoV, and not in any particular chronological order, so yeah  
epilogue (head)canons this will be compliant with  
candy: nonbinary roxy and calliope, jane as the somewhat ruthless owner of a company, disconnected/dissociative/depressed dirk.  
meat: n/a  
other: june egbert

_ **April 2019** _

You’re in the research lab, being mildly disgruntled at undergraduates when you decide to text Callie. They don’t answer. Forty-five minutes later, they haven’t answered. You think of texting Karkat, decide against that, sit at your desk, and sigh.

Sometimes, you don’t have all the answers.

Sometimes, you don’t even know what questions to ask.

And then, sometimes, you figure out the questions, but need someone else to help you answer them in a satisfactory way. Or at least a framework to use.

You take your phone out a second time.

TG: hey earth to the other t py

TG: i need jesus

TG: wait thats bullshit

TG: i need advice

TG: is this thing on

TA: 0 5H17

TA: H3Y R0XY

TA: U 7RYN4 F1ND 7UL4 CUZ 1M PR377Y SUR3 5H35 N074R1Z1NG 5H17 RN

TA: C4N 1 74K3 4 M3554G3

TG: i wasnt looking for her

TG: i was actualy hopin to talk to you

TA: WH47 480U7

TG: uh TG: u kno how like

TG: i literally dormed w a bunch of asshole dudes for all of college

TA: Y34 1M K1ND4 R3L473D 7W0 0N3 0F 3M

TG: well i figured out y i mighta been so ok with that for so many years

TG: its

TG: rly complicated

TG: i prolly shoulda hit kitkat up but im p fuckin sure hes like

TG: stuck in clinicals somewhere and cannot be bothered unless the apocalypse happens or dave gets hit by a bus or interfaith hospital burns down

TG: so i got a stupid question

TA: 5H007

TG: feel free to tell me to fuck off if this is too personal

TA: D0 U KN0W H0W H4RD 7H7 15

TA: 1M 8R357 F13ND5 W17H KURL0LZ M4K4R4

TA: CH4NC35 4R3 157 N07 7W0 P3R50N4L LM40

TG: pfft lol tru

TG: howd u um

TG: um shit

TA: N07 RU5H1NG U 8U7 MY PH0N3 15 G0NN4 D13 500N

TA: G07 M4Y83 F1733N M1N5 83F0R3 1 G0774 PLUG 17 1N

TG: ok ya

TG: my bad

TG: o great and wise tuna py

TA: L0LWU7

TG: im getting to it calm ur tits

TG: well

TG: howd u know u were trans

TG: or at least not cis

TA: 17 D1D3N7 H4PP3N 1N574N7LY

TA: 700K 4 F3W YR5

TA: 5P3N7 4 L0774 71M3 1N H5 W17H 7UL4843 4ND P0M4RY L1K3

TA: D0 1 W4NN4 83 W17H U 0R D0 1 W4NN4 83 L13K Y0U GU355 73H 4N53R W45 807H

TG: lol every time i saw di stri and lispy i used to ask that

TA: 1M G0NN4 5M0K3 4ND F0RG37 U 3V3R G07 W17H MY 8R0

TA: M3N74L 1M4G35 Y0

TA: Z3 G0GGL35

TA: Z3Y D0 N07H1NG

TG: sry

TG: i forgot

TG: and im sry to bother u but callie isnt answering either otherwise id ask them about this

TA: 1 G37 17  
TA: U D0N7 H4V3 7W0 4P0L0G135

TA: 1M H3R3 1F U W4NN4 74LK

TA: W3N D0 U G37 0U774 5UP3RV151NG 73H N3RD5

TG: 6 pm

TG: y do you ask

TA: 1 G07 J4CK 5H17 7W0 D0 7W0N1GH7

TA: 50 1M G0NN4 74K3 U F0R C0FF33 50 U C4N 73LL M3 480U7 5H17 Y0

TA: 1F U W4N7

TG: id like that tuna

TG: id like that a lot

TG: thanks

TA: N0 PR0L3M

TA: 1F 1 C4N F1ND C4LL13 1LL 8R1NG 7H3M 7W0

TA: 4ND R0XY

TG: ya

TA: 157 G0NN4 83 0K M4N

TA: 5W34R 0N MY VIDYA G43M5

TG: lol thanks

TG: i knew you wouldnt judge me or nothing but thanks for being like

TG: fantastically cool

TG: cooler than absolute zero

TA: PFFF7 MY 1N3R7 M0L3CUL35 54Y UR W3LC0M3 D1P5H17

TA: CY4 L473R


	2. june: today she will be given a name

_ **August 2019 **_

Karkat doesn’t react to your revelation all that much, except to say something to the effect of, “fucking figures.” He puts down his PS4 controller, takes a large book on gender and gender expression out of his bookcase, and sets it down in front of you. Doesn’t slam it down the way you expected him, given the expression of vague exasperation on his face.

“Okay, John. You might be like us. Not the end of the world,_”_ he says, pointing to himself and Roxy, who looks ever so cute in their band t-shirt and slacks, their heart shaped sunglasses, and yarmulke resting on their head. You frown, and he corrects himself. “_June, _rather. My fucking bad, sorry.”

And the way he drags out the syllable of your name makes you smile. He shuffles from one foot to the other, nervously. “There’re places you can go, y’know, doctors and shit, if you want to get HRT and surgeries. And psychologists, so you can get letters for that. Okay?”

You have no idea if you want to go that route. You haven’t really thought that far. You tell him this. He shrugs as if it makes no difference. Roxy puts down their controller, and smiles at the both of you.

“What crabass is tryna say, and doing a bad job of saying, is that you have options. This isn’t 2008, anymore,” they say, making an oblique reference to the year Karkat came out. “You don’t need your dad’s permission, and doctors are a lot more understanding about transgender shit than they used to be. True or false, shouty?”

Karkat wrinkles his nose at the old nickname, but nevertheless mutters, “True.”

“See, June?” Roxy puts their hand on your shoulder. “And if you wanna update your wardrobe, I’m sure Tuna’ll be glad to bring you up to speed. Hir, or Eridan. maybe.”

Mituna’s bigender but dresses mostly feminine, to your knowledge, while Eridan just likes dressing in drag every now and then. You _would_ ask Eridan, but your last breakup with him rather ended with you burning your bridges with him. Or him burning his bridges with you. Someone’s bridges got burned. 

You sigh. Roxy blinks at you, rapidly ascertaining the source of your hesitation.

“For fuck’s sake, you know he would help you with _this. _He’d wanna help.” they say.

You’re not sure how much you want to change up your aesthetic, though. You like your sense of style, or lack thereof, as Karkat might put it. Terezi says that your inability to follow any and all fashion trends is “refreshingly earnest, almost kind of cute, for a weenie”. 

And you really don’t want to talk to Eridan if you don’t have to. 

Roxy shakes their head as if your continued reticence is just fine.

Minutes later, Karkat wants to know if he can unpause the game yet.

You’re going to need to tell Terezi about this eventually. Shit, you two are dating in all but name, at this point. Assuming she hasn’t already sniffed out something in your demeanor related to this. It wouldn’t surprise you if she has. You’re not sure how you’d feel about that.

“Do me a favor, though?” you ask Karkat and Roxy.

“Yeah?” Roxy looks up from the book Karkat had set out in front of you.

Karkat shrugs. “Depends on the favor.”

Roxy elbows him. You snort-laugh until your sides ache.

“Can we keep this a secret for now?” you ask. “From everyone. I’ll tell them eventually, but for now, for now I just want to…”

You aren’t strictly sure what you want to do, but you guess you can figure it out. You have time to figure out. 

Roxy nods, smiling. 

Karkat closes the book.

“We aren’t gonna run around outing you to everyone we know,” he says, more than a little sourly. You know what he’s thinking about, and all of a sudden, guilt drums its cold fingers down the back of your neck. You thought you'd been acting supportive by freely discussing Karkat's decision in 10th grade. But... maybe not. You were never known for being the most sensitive or thoughtful person. You still aren't. Probably one of the reasons your relationship with Eridan went so far south. Karkat goes on, “Like Roxy said, this isn’t 2008 anymore. You can take this as fast or as slow as you want to. But you should probably let Terezi know, at least.” When you blanch at his words, he adds hastily, “When you’re ready.”

Right. Alright, then.

Then…

You think of your father being so proud of the young man he raised, giving you his pipe, his straight razor, and his pocket watch when you left for college. And you were overjoyed beyond words that he’d deemed you man enough to earn these pieces of himself. If something about it - _about this assumption that you could be anyone else but the young man he raised_ \- had bothered you then, you chalked it up to being anxious about college and the idea of rooming with five idiots. 

And now? And now?

You’ll go upstairs to your bedroom, look at the pipe, and shake your head. There are many things that are important to you, still. You are still your father’s child, and the smell of pipe smoke is home and safety rolled into one.

At the end of the day, though, your name is _not the one your father gave you_. And this, your hidden identity, the source of most of your post-college depression, is not the legacy he prepared you for. You cannot imagine your father hating you for this - you cannot imagine your father being hateful about anything related to you. He loves you unconditionally. 

Try disappointed, though. He might be disappointed. What if that were to happen? Could you handle that?

You gaze at Roxy and Karkat, the latter of whom has just texted you Mituna Pyrope’s number. 

CG: YEAH THESE ARE SHITLORD’S DIGITS

CG: ZE CAN PROBABLY HELP YOU WITH A LOT

CG: IF YOU CAN GET OVER THE GENERAL CAPTOR INSUFFERABILITY

EB: thank you karkat!

CG: THANK ME NOTHING

CG: I CARE ABOUT YOU DUMBASS

CG: SO TALK TO SOMEONE WHO KNOWS MORE ABOUT WHAT YOU WOULD BE DOING THAN ME OR ROXY

Karkat shouldn’t sell himself so short, you think to yourself. However, telling him so would probably either flatter him speechless, or make him start yelling.

You blow your bangs out of your eyes. You check out your reflection in a nearby mirror. You’re wearing an old faded shirt with a ghost on the front, and a pair of cargo shorts.

You look exactly the same as you did Before.

And yet, everything has changed in some small, subtle way.

Your name…?

_Your name is June Egbert._

_ **What will you do?** _


	3. mituna: times like these you just take it slow

Your name is Mituna Captor-Pyrope, and when John Egbert - _no, June Egbert_ \- shows up on your doorstep, her eyebags containing eyebags from her massive rumination-slash-depression-induced sleep debt, you reflect that no one is less equipped than you to act as team mom to this motley group of transgender kids that comes to you for advice.

First, Karkat, back in ‘05, when he noticed the alacrity with which your wore your eldest female cousin’s clothes when you were sure no one would be watching. _Was it okay to dress in the clothing of the opposite sex? he wanted to know. What if he did it because he’d wanted to be the opposite sex all along? Was there something wrong with him? Was there something wrong with you? Was the same thing wrong with him that was wrong with you?_

You hadn’t been able to give him much advice on opposite anything, but you firmly insisted to him that there was nothing wrong with dressing the way he felt most comfortable. You talked the way a real adult might have.

Then, Calliope, in ‘10, when they asked if it was possible to be trans without being a trans man or a trans woman, and you ended up taking them to Meenah to teach them how to dress butch. 

Then, little brother of Cronut Amporno, in ‘13, when he asked you to ask Porrim to do his makeup for a drag show he’d be participating in. For several shows, really. Along with specific advice regarding tucking and pitching one's voice high that only you would be able to provide. 

Then, Roxy Lalonde, earlier this year, who messaged you from the frigid lab from which they act as an adjunct professor of chemistry, once again, wondering if there existed something beyond the gender binary for people like her. _Like them._ If they had to be a woman if they did not wish to.

Now, here stands John Egbert, in a dress he’s stolen from Rose Lalonde, probably. Lavender and skin-tight. With his five-o-clock shadow beginning to stubbornly show beneath the concealer he’s applied, he looks just as uncomfortable wearing it as you might, and you recognize a Kanaya Maryam original in the dress. Definitely one of Rose's old dresses. You can't help but feel like Roxy had a hand in helping him pilfer it.

_ June Egbert. Her. _You remind yourself of the facts.

Well, if she knows makeup, Roxy or Eridan must have already gotten to her, you realize.

But still. You cannot believe that you are now the older sister - older sibling - to all these trans kids, who aren’t kids, but probably need guidance just the same.

Why you?

Fucksake, you can barely remember to take your medication on time. You’re still stuck in a dead-end position at Gamestop, although you’ve been made manager in the years you’ve been working there since 2009. You have another kid on the way. An actual biological child, to add to the three-year-old on the couch.

You exhale your worries, and inhale resolve to do the right thing, whatever that may be.

“June, right?” you ask, once you’re done standing in your doorway like a moron. You try to channel a responsible adult, like Porrim, Latula, or your mother, before you speak. “C’mon, Egbert, come in. It’s good to see you.”

Her expression brightens.

“Yes, Mx. Pyrope!” She wobbles in the wedge heels she’s donned for the occasion. “It’s good to see you too!”

June smiles a true smile, her buckteeth on full display, and all your reservations with acting as this woman’s mentor melt away, like snow beneath March thaw.

You’ll protect her.

You’ll teach her whatever it is she wants to learn from you. You bite your lip in thought, rapidly figuring out what your first lesson should be.

You can practically hear June’s discomfort at dressing high-femme screaming from her otherwise silent mouth.

Here is where you start.

“Kay, kiddo,” you say, gesturing to your couch, where your eldest biological child tries to puzzle her way through subtraction. “Roxy already told me you were coming. They’re good like that. But there’s something you should know.”

Presentation does not equal gender identity. June could run around in her faded tees and her Bermuda shorts and still be no less of a woman than the likes of Latula or Pomary.

It’s important that she understand, that you tell her this.

“What’s that?” June asks, a bit of scarlet lipstick on her two front teeth.

You try your very hardest not to laugh. No use in her thinking you’re patronizing her, because you're not. Your laugh is one of relief. Relief, and joy that maybe she'll understand a thing or two once you're done speaking. For not the first time, you grok Pomary's and Kankri's zeal toward their social justice causes.

You point to the loveseat in your living room.

“Sit down there, and I’ll start ‘splaining. If you want.”

June gazes up at you expectantly.

"I do. Want you to explain, I mean. Thanks for helping me."


	4. roxy: this is the claim that you'll keep on making

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yeeee time to add plot to this clusterfuck.  
"plot"??  
plot in airquotes? sounds about right.

_ **September 2019 ** _

You’re crashing on Mituna’s couch at the moment, in the Captor-Pyrope household. Right now, you watch Aveline Pyrope devour post-school cheerios and bang out a decent beat on the kitchen wall with a wooden spoon. 

As long as she stays on the tile part of the wall, doesn’t try to whack anyone with her instrument, and doesn’t make too much racket, Latula and Mituna are content to let her continue.

Meanwhile, June’s gotten the makeover you asked Mituna to give her, the one you sucked at giving. She’s wearing her regular clothes again, she looks like she’s moisturized, her hair's been styled into a little fishtail braid, and she’s got clear polish on her nails.

She is an absolute vision of perfection.

At the very least, she doesn’t look as uncomfortable as she did before. Maybe you went overboard with the femme shit. Scratch that, you know you did. You’d just wanted her to feel pretty, the way she deserved to.

Turns out you forgot to ascertain exactly what she wanted you to do, as opposed to assuming she wanted to go by your suggestions.

Roxy, you need help.

“Diggin’ the look,” you say to her, smiling. “Tuna’s a fucking genius. Ten outta ten, Juney.”

An exasperated sigh oozes from the teal-eyed woman across the living room, who, along with Feferi, seems to be paging through several boxes of legal briefs, with June none the wiser to her annoyance.

She wasn’t raised to be afraid of people expressing displeasure and - while you’re much better about these things than you were at fifteen - your childhood wasn’t the happiest , so the noise catches you off guard.

Before you can lightly ask, _“Everything okay?”_ Latula raises a tan finger to be heard.

“Please don’t ever mention Jane Crocker in my house unnecessarily. Most of this nonsense pertains to her,” she says, gesturing to the documents, referring to the legal battle over Rainbow Falls. 

Feferi’s quick to nod emphatically, until the former realizes you were merely addressing June, and explains the mistake to Feferi. Then, they both apologize.

“Right. My bad, coolkid. I just. I’m stressed out. What Crockercorp’s doing cannot be legal. You haven’t signed ownership over yet, Roxy,” Latula says.

“Ac-shell-y, it just might be, because of this contract preceding the final offer,” Feferi replies. “Does naut make it ethical, though.”

Somewhere between the third and fourth time Latula apologizes, she mutters something about hormones and the pain in her feet. She’s what, eight and half months along? That’s nothing to sneeze at. 

Mituna snorts. Ze puts down hir Nintendo DS and embraces her from behind.

“Babe, maybe you should just fuckin’ leave this one to Fef for now?”

Latula is unmoved.

“I am in the middle of doing something exceedingly important.” 

"Yeah, but this is why you have an intern, right? Said she was the most competent intern in the galaxy, some shit like that? Smart as Terezi and not as annoying?”

You and June laugh at that, while Feferi blushes at the high praise from her mentor. 

“You’re not incorrect.” She lets her shoulders relax. "Y'know this _would_ be much easier with Terezi around."

June frowns, then makes to get up from her spot on the floor, pick up her bag, and walk out the door.

Latula wheedles her back into place.

"Terezi already knows about the Crocker shit, though. She doesn't have to be right here to help us research," she goes on. "We promised we'd keep you and she apart until you were ready to tell her, right?"

"Yeah, but--"

"No buts," Mituna says. "Also, you were here first, juss' sayin'. It'd be fuc--er, uh... messed up to tell you to take a walk. So stay."

At last, June relaxes, but Mituna isn't finished.

Ze turns to hir wife.

"And _you_, babe, are supposed to be on bed rest." 

Latula rolls her eyes spectacularly, but allows herself to be half-dragged, half-carried into her bedroom. A last glance at Aveline, still banging out a drum solo on the wall.

You follow her line of sight.

“June and I can watch the kid while you take a nap,” you offer. "And Feferi, too."

Latula smiles once, wan, and disappears into her room. 

Then, you take a look-see at what Feferi and Latula have been working on and groan.

The thing about you, Roxy, is that you detest confrontations. You would rather chop your own leg off than take sides between spats in your friend group. 

Your natural instinct is to appease everyone, to make everyone happy, even if you are left unsatisfied. With what feels like a yawning void within you, located somewhere you imagine your integrity might be otherwise. You haven’t gone that far in the name of appeasement in a while, but that…

that particular coping mechanism…

…that is nevertheless preferable to this. 

You adjust your kippah, and shake your head.

“Guess Janey still intends to use Rainbow Falls as the headquarters for her R&D program,” you say softly. 

A furrow appears between Feferi’s eyebrows.

“More than. Look at these blueprints for expansion. She’s going to krill all the fish and more besides."

You bite the inside of your cheek, unconsciously.

"Great."

"And I’ve been thinking of how this planned construction would disrupt the ecosystem, and my statistics…” She takes out a couple of sheets of paper. “…don’t paint a promising picture for the future.”

You nod.

“But Jane said her crew would make minimal changes on the existing research facilities.” You steeple your fingers, thoughtfully, weighing that promise against what you've seen with your own eyes. Still, you feel compelled to defend Jane. “There’d be a temporary disruption in routine, but nothing that the local and greater aquaculture couldn’t bounce back from.”

“In theory.” Feferi’s eyes flash testily in contrast to the lightness of her tone. She reaches for her cuttlefish backpack and begins rhythmically squeezing one of its tentacles. Then, she’s fully calm again. “But we aren’t talking about the buildings she’s merely changing. What aboat the ones she’s building from scratch? All I can do is extrapoolate, but…”

“…it doesn’t look good, does it?” you ask.

“It does naut,” Feferi replies. “I’m shore-y, Roxy. I know you thought you were doing the right thing, in bringing Jane on board after your papi passed, but this is dolphinately going to have negative effects.”

When your grandfather died, in 2012, and both your mother and Rose declined to be executrix to his estate, everything fell to you, including the aging structures in Rainbow Falls. Abandoned research facilities which your old, taciturn Boricua grandfather had helped build and maintain.

Fast forward a few years, you’re in grad school, Jane’s in law school, and you decide to take her on a tour of the place. Call it a date. Call it whatever you want. You were bored and single, and she was bored and single, and Rainbow Falls was a romantic place to take a girl.

Aside from the beauty of the vantage point, the waterfall gave Jane an idea.

(With your permission - of course - perhaps she could use it to get her company off the ground.)

Crockercorp has become one of the emerging names in clean energy. You pass by their headquarters in Downtown Brooklyn, on your way to work. Even as you leased the place to her, you’d always been under the impression that Jane had been planning to update the current facilities, and leave everything else alone, as much as you could leave things alone. And you'd never thought she'd try to claim ownership of the place from underneath you.

Her rationale when you'd talked to her on the phone last had been that you were doing nothing with the property. She could do _something._ Why shouldn't it belong to her?

That logic had seemed so simple five or six days ago. You'd nearly acquiesced.

These sets of blueprints, along with permit requests, show you a different set of writing on the wall.

You feel itchy under your binder. Itchy, sweaty and anxious, as if you might run out of air soon.

You wish you could take the damn thing off, but that’d mean going shirtless momentarily, and you’re certain you don’t want to do that.

What is Jane playing at? Why didn’t she tell you about this?

A dark thought occurs to you, a paranoid, catastrophic little what-if.

Would you have signed papers all but making her the owner of that private lab, if she’d told you about these ideas for expansion first?

You refuse to believe so lowly of your best friend.

Maybe someone else has more insight. You gaze over at June.

“Sorry to rope you into this one, but you’ve lived with Jane and your dads for over twenty years. Any idea what her plans really are?”

June snorts.

“I was a history major, minor in English, Roxy. Even if she tried to break it down for me, her explanations would have flown over my head. I don't know business. And I sure don't know science.”

Yeah, he almost burned down the chem lab a decade ago trying to run a redox reaction two months before the regents exam. But if June ever had a serious flaw, it was underestimating herself.

“You weren’t just a history major. You graduated with high honors,” you remind her. You leave out the “dipshit” you were planning to add to the end of the sentence. June does not deserve that, doesn’t deserve to be verbally abused because you’re in a shitty mood. And you aren’t done. “Before you say that you only did well because of Eridan, Eridan wasn’t the one who wrote and defended your thesis. You’re smart, June. So anything you know…”

You gather your words properly, and focus on saying them as kindly as possible.

“Anything you might know from living with Jane is more than we know from talking to her. And maybe you know more than you think.”

Feferi pours herself another cup cold of hibiscus tea, and begins to drink it so daintily that you cannot believe she wasn’t a princess in her last life. Then she adds a splash - a thimbleful, your mother would call it - of rum to the remainder. Your rum, probably, from the flask you had in the bottom of your duffel bag.

Nothing like a battle over property to break your twenty-six day sobriety streak. She takes a long swig.

You try not to let your thoughts linger longingly after the flask.

June throws her hands up, faintly exasperated.

"Even if I did know something, isn't it too late? Isn't that why Latula's piss... I mean, annoyed?"

Watching your language in front of a kid is pretty hard, even when you are as wholesome as June. 

“Everyfin’s naut been finalized. Roxy hasn't fully signed anyfin over. But I don’t have a good feeling aboat Jane’s ideas,”Feferi she says, carefully. “And June, don’t sell yourself so short. History’s important.”

June rolls her eyes. 

“Does being able to decipher Shakespeare plays without the Sparknotes count as important, compared to you guys? Well, not ‘you guys’, but…”

“We get it,” Feferi says, before June can get too flustered. “History is important, though. Latula was a history major, too, and look at her now. ‘Sides, Santayana once said somefin pike ‘those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.’ So don’t act as if you know nofin.”

Feferi’s words hang in the air like smoke, until yet another one of Aveline’s drum solos utterly interrupts your meeting.

The kid’s clearly bored out of her mind, watching all the adults discuss and commiserate.

Before you can pick her up and give her a little attention, June beats you to the draw.

“You’re great with that spoon,” she tells the kid. “Excellent composition.”

If Aveline doesn’t know what that means, she laughs just the same. 

“We should introduce her to Dave.” June picks Aveline up, about to give her a piggyback ride. “He’d be so mad to be upstaged by a three year old.”

"Or Dirk," you suggest. "His vids need better background music."

"His vids need to be less boring," Feferi mutters, and you swallow a laugh.

Dirk's been doing a Youtube series on competitive robotics how-tos aimed toward the high school circuit, ever since he finished graduate school. Since he has all but become a hermit, sequestering himself in his high rise apartment in Astoria, watching his videos when they come out twice a week is your only real way of confirming that he's alive. You haven't seen him outside the confines of his home since Karkat's birthday party, and that was in July.

He'd said the short hair suited you, once he recognized you. Then, he gifted you the heart shaped sunglasses you've adopted for your signature look. 

In the here and now, Aveline declines June's piggyback ride with something like, "I'm _three and a half. _Almost _four_.”

"Little Miss Pedantic," you murmur, loud enough that only Feferi can hear. "Wonder who she gets that from. My money's on the Captor side."

June lowers Aveline to the floor, and kneels so that she’s eye-to-eye with the girl.

“Yes, you’re right.” She hands her back her wooden spoon with amusing reverence. “It was my mistake.”

"Apology accepted," the kid replies, with a snotty sort of grace that makes you think of her uncle Sollux.

Again.

You wonder how many times he's babysat this terror.

“Good. 'Cause right now, Feferi and Roxy are having a really important conversation. _The most important,_” she says, with affected exaggeration. “Besides, you can’t practice music all the time. You have to be well-rounded.”

Aveline bangs on the floor with her spoon once, before seemingly giving this some contemplation.

She points to her bedroom.

“I can show you my pictures, then?” she asks. “I made them myself.”

June allows Aveline to drag her into her bedroom, presumably to show her every drawing that has cluttered the space. You've seen them before. All of them. Latula and Mituna are too proud of them not to show you whenever you come over.

Then, your pale, bespectacled savior grins at the pair of you, as if to say, _“you’re welcome”, _right before she gets dragged off by Aveline Pyrope to be given an impromptu art show.

All you and Feferi can do is laugh yourselves silly.


End file.
